Service provided by the Federal Ministry of Justice
and the Federal Office of Justice ‒ www.gesetze-im-internet.de
Länder shall also be regarded as private bodies as defined in this Act if they take part in
competition as enterprises governed by public law and carry out federal law, and if data
protection is not governed by Land law.
Chapter 2
Legal basis for processing personal data
Section 3
Processing of personal data by public bodies
Public bodies shall be permitted to process personal data if such processing is necessary to
perform the task for which the controller is responsible or to exercise official authority which
has been vested in the controller.
Section 4
Video surveillance of publicly accessible spaces
(1) Monitoring publicly accessible areas with optical-electronic devices (video surveillance)
shall be permitted only as far as it is necessary
1.
for public bodies to perform their tasks,
2.
to exercise the right to determine who shall be allowed or denied access or
3.
to safeguard legitimate interests for specifically defined purposes
and if there is nothing to indicate legitimate overriding interests of the data subjects. For
video surveillance of
1.
large publicly accessible facilities, such as sport facilities, places of gathering
and entertainment, shopping centres and car parks, or
2.
vehicles and large publicly accessible facilities of public rail, ship or bus
transport,
protecting the lives, health and freedom of persons present shall be regarded as a very
important interest.
(2) Appropriate measures shall be taken to make the surveillance and the controller’s name
and contact details identifiable as early as possible.
(3) Storing or using data collected pursuant to subsection 1 shall be permitted if necessary to
achieve the intended purpose and if there is nothing to indicate legitimate overriding interests
of the data subjects. Subsection 1, second sentence, shall apply accordingly. The data may
be further processed for another purpose only if necessary to prevent threats to state and
public security and to prosecute crimes.
(4) If data collected from video surveillance are attributed to a particular person, that person
shall be informed of the processing in accordance with Articles 13 and 14 of Regulation (EU)
2016/679. Section 32 shall apply accordingly.
(5) The data shall be deleted without delay, if they are no longer needed for the intended
purpose or if the data subject's legitimate interests stand in the way of any further storage.
Chapter 3
Data protection officers of public bodies
Section 5
Designation
(1) Public bodies shall designate a data protection officer. This shall also apply to public
bodies as defined in Section 2 (5) which take part in competition.
(2) A single data protection officer may be designated for several public bodies, taking
account of their organizational structure and size.
Page 3 of 43